Politics

On two separate occasions in the last three years, Times reporters have examined and found no truth to allegations that Vice President Dan Quayle bought drugs as a law student and later as a senator. The allegations–similar to charges contained in Doonesbury comic strips that are scheduled to run for two weeks, starting Monday–were originally … Read more

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park) speaks during a congressional subcommittee hearing in 2020. She voted against a federal data privacy bill, saying it would override a California law. (Greg Nash / Associated Press) A key congressional committee is pushing a federal bill to bolster protections for consumers’ online data privacy, but California lawmakers have launched … Read more

Trucks wait in long lines to enter the Port of Los Angeles. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) The Port of Los Angeles will begin operating around the clock as the White House pushes to clear supply chain bottlenecks threatening the holiday shopping season and slowing the country’s economic recovery from the global pandemic, senior Biden administration … Read more

No country in the world today is as ripe for democratic regime change as Iran. Societal discontent with the conservative clerics who rule the country has been building for years and now pervades the society. This broad disaffection has produced splits within the ruling regime. Periodic outbursts of public discontent, like the student protests last … Read more

Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) When former presidents and other dignitaries traveled to California to wax nostalgic on the speaking circuit, they may have been demanding, but none insisted on being flown from San Francisco by private jet to a venue just 70 miles down the freeway. … Read more

In an ironic final chapter to the most disputed presidential election in modern history, Vice President Al Gore presided over his own defeat Saturday, as a joint session of Congress formally declared George W. Bush the next president of the United States. “May God bless our new president and new vice president, and may God … Read more

Senate candidates Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez appear Wednesday at Cal State L.A. in their only head-to-head debate. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) In their only scheduled debate before election day, the two Democrats vying for California’s open U.S. Senate seat clashed as much over personal style as policies in what was a frenzied … Read more

If her husband is elected president, Teresa Heinz Kerry will be among America’s most recognizable figures. But she already is commander of a family empire that has been a familiar name to Americans for over a century — one whose history includes political activism and philanthropy, but also infighting and tragedy. The Heinz family history … Read more

The 2000 national political conventions elicited little more than a national yawn. Most Americans ignored the festivities, while the press and pundits dismissed the calculated, made-for-TV events as “infomercials.” Instead they longed for the Olympian confrontations and dramatic surprises of yesteryear: 1844, when the first dark horse, James Knox Polk, galloped out of the shadows … Read more

Bernie Sanders is on a roll. He’s won three of the last four Democratic primaries and barely lost Tuesday in Kentucky. Yet Hillary Clinton is likely to continue her seemingly unstoppable march to the party’s presidential nomination. How can that be? It’s not a conspiracy, as some angry Sanders backers suggest, a result of dark … Read more